'Love Rehab' Author Jo Piazza Talks to Us About Fictional Fashion and Pinterest

By day, Jo Piazza is the high-powered Executive News Director at celebrity weeklies InTouch and Life & Style. By night, she's an avid rom-com watcher—and a debut novelist! I caught up with Piazza over breakfast this week to find out about her first book, Love Rehab: A Novel in Twelve Steps—a story about real women looking for love in and out of the big city—and the huge role fashion plays in it (the characters even have dedicated Pinterest fashion boards!)

StyleBistro: So tell me, are the characters in the book fashion-obsessed?

Jo Piazza: When we came up with the cover design, my friend Jenn Hyman, who's at Rent the Runway, said, 'Make her more fashionable.' And I was like, 'But she's not fashionable.'

The point is that my main character is not that fashionable girl—she's very normal and this is what she wears. But there is this character in the book called 'The Princess' who is super-fashionable.

StyleBistro: Wait, her name is really 'The Princess'?

Jo Piazza: Her name is Katrina, but we call her 'The Princess.' She's modeled after someone I know. She's super-fashionable, so there are all sorts of brands. There's fashion all over the book and fashion to describe moods. For example, in the beginning, my main character is super-depressed laying on the couch drunk and wearing these hole-ridden Juicy Couture sweats.

StyleBistro: How important of a role did fashion play in your writing process?

Jo Piazza: I totally saw it play out like a movie. I'd never written fiction, so the only thing I could really think about was what they were wearing. I think a lot of writers think about who their characters are and their actions, but I was like, 'Who are they and what are they wearing?' Because that's my go-to. That's also why the Pinterest page is so great—there's an Annie outfit, and there's a Sophie outfit.

StyleBistro: Any plans for a sequel?

Jo Piazza: I think it's going to be the kind of book where it's not going to be a sequel of the main character, but a spinoff of one of the smaller characters. I've started writing it already!